Apartheid Legislation in South Africa Starting in 1948, the Nationalist Government in South Africa enacted laws to define and enforce segregation. What makes South Africa's apartheid era different to segregation and racial hatred that have occurred in other countries is the systematic way in which the National Party, which came into power in 1948, formalized it through the law. The main laws are described below. Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, Act No 55 of 1949 Prohibited marriages between white people and people of other races. Between 1946 and the enactment of this law, only 75 mixed marriages had been recorded, compared with some 28,000 white marriages. Population Registration Act, Act No 30 of 1950 Led to the creation of a national register in which every person's race was recorded. A Race Classification Board took the final decision on what a person's race was in disputed cases.
Group Areas Act, Act No 41 of 1950 Forced physical separation between races by creating different residential areas for different races. Led to forced removals of people living in "wrong" areas, for example Colored living in District Six in Cape Town. Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act, Act No 52 of 1951 Gave the Minister of Native Affairs the power to remove blacks from public or privately owned land and to establishment resettlement camps to house these displaced people. Natives (Abolition of Passes and Co-ordination of Documents) Act, Act No 67 of 1952 Commonly known as the Pass Laws, this ironically named act forced black people to carry identification with them at all times. A pass included a photograph, details of place of origin, employment record, tax payments, and encounters with the police. It was a criminal offence to be unable to produce a pass when required to do so by the police. No black person could leave a rural area for an urban one without a permit from the local authorities.
Native Labor (Settlement of Disputes) Act of 1953 Prohibited strike action by blacks. Reservation of Separate Amenities Act, Act No 49 of 1953 Forced segregation in all public amenities, public buildings, and public transport with the aim of eliminating contact between whites and other races. "Europeans Only" and "Non-Europeans Only" signs were put up. The act stated that facilities provided for different races need not be equal. Natives (Prohibition of Interdicts) Act, Act No 64 of 1956 Denied black people the option of appealing to the courts against forced removals. Extension of University Education Act, Act 45 of 1959 Put an end to black students attending white universities (mainly the universities of Cape Town and Witwatersrand). Created separate tertiary institutions for whites, Colored, blacks, and Asians. Terrorism Act of 1967 Allowed for indefinite detention without trial and established BOSS, the Bureau of State Security, which was responsible for the internal security of South Africa.
Does the of racial separateness behind Apartheid only apply to South Africa? No! Segregation in the United States and the Jim Crow Laws
A sign on a restaurant in Lancaster, Ohio, in 1938 A sign on a restaurant in Lancaster, Ohio, in 1938. Segregation in America